Maple Bacon Cake Doughnuts

Maple bacon doughnuts are nothing new to my world (evidence: here and here). I lead a lucky life.

And despite me loving them, I’ve never felt the urge to make them myself. When I think of homemade doughnuts, I get sleepy. Sooooo much work. The dough making, the rolling out, cutting out, the two rises and the frying. Ugh. Too much. It’s way easier to drive downtown and pick one up.

A few days ago though, I found a happy compromise: hot oil…but NO rises. Cake doughnuts. Whoa. WHOA.

This comes together, I swear, in like 15 minutes. It’s the easiest dough in the world. You mix a little here, pour in a little milk there, fold in some flour. That’s it.

Roll it out. Cut out your doughnuts.

And fry. There’s no wait!

Real talk for a second: Frying is annoying. I know this. What are you supposed to do with the oil when you’re done? Ugh. What if it spills everywhere? These are all really valid arguments why you should just buy a deep-fryer.

I’ve been telling myself this for the past few months. It’s actually neater and easier with a deep-fryer. But…but…imagine how much I’d fry! Chicken wings for dinner. Fried calamari all the time. Fried twinkies for dessert. It’d be a problem.

I just can’t bring myself to do it. Fried dough is a treat. That’s why I urge you to actually double this recipe because you’re putting in a little bit of effort so it needs to be worth your while.

AM I RIGHT? I’m right.

Also, please disregard my disgusting nails. Just shameful.

My favorite part of this recipe was dipping the doughnuts in the glaze. So pretty! So fun!

4. Use a 3-inch doughnut cutter, cut out doughnuts. Re-roll the scraps to make more doughnuts. I ended up with about 11 doughnuts and 11 doughnut holes.

5. Carefully drop 3 to 4 doughnuts at a time into the oil and fry for 1 ½ to 2 minutes, flipping the doughnuts after a minute.

6. Drain on paper towels and repeat until all the doughnuts have been made.

7. In a small bowl, mix together glaze ingredients until smooth and creamy. To make the doughnuts, dip the doughnuts into the glaze and top with a few chopped pieces of bacon. Repeat until all of the doughnuts and doughnut holes are covered in glaze and bacon.

Just bought my man a donut pan for Valentine’s Day. He loves to bake and donuts are one of his all-time weaknesses, but we’ve never actually made any homemade. Perfect timing with your bacony cakey post!

Can we adjust this recipe so we can use the new donut pan and bake them?

They’re not a typical loose cake doughnut batter–they’re a bit sturdier. I’d think maybe cutting them out, baking them at 350F might be your best bet. If you do try this, let me know how they turn out. 🙂

YES. Being a Portland (voodoo doughnut!) native, I wholeheartedly support bacon donuts. You can’t go wrong! These look perfect! I’m glad you cut the bacon up before putting it on – it’s always hard to bit into a doughnut with a full strip of bacon and not end up eating the entire strip in one bite. Ugh.

also- I made that same glaze to go on these adorable mini cinnamon pinwheels and when it called for that much powdered sugar I didn’t believe it. So i started putting it in a tablespoon at a time because I couldn’t wrap my head around the ratio of sugar to other ingredients. sure enough a cup later I had my glaze.

These doughnuts look AMAZING! I had my first Maple Bacon doughnut at a shop in Oregon called Voodoo Doughnuts and it was beyond delicious. Thank you for sharing this recipe! The only problem is that now I will want to make these all the time! 🙂

This is the first good different use of bacon I’ve seen of late (sorry, I don’t want bacon with my ice cream). This in fact looks quite tasty, however girl scout cookies just came in… 🙂 I am curious as to why you used peanut oil. Flavor? or the higher smoke point??

The first time i saw maple bacon donuts was at Voodoo Donut in Portland. There were too many kinds that I got overwhelmed and decided to try something else. Thanks to this recipe, I might be able to just recreate it at home.

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Foods like these donuts are precisely why I keep forgetting to bring home the deep frier my mother has waiting for me in NJ. Because you’re so right, a deep fryer would make everything easier, I would probably be eating these donuts (and other forms of fried dough) on a ridiculously regular basis. And that would be bad. But it would be so good!

Adrianna, I love bacon donuts (of any kind) and I’ve purchased them from bake shops a number of times but I’m so glad you shared this recipe for making them at home… I have featured this post in today’s Friday Food Fetish roundup. Let me know if you have any objections and thanks as ever for the inspiration…